Eternal Kiss (34 page)

I got him to let me out at the entrance to the trailer park. Dropping me off in the middle of the night was one thing, dropping me off where Dad could see? Something else entirely. The truck was in the driveway, and I was glad I’d been cautious.

Dad was home, and sober. He didn’t give me the business at all. Instead, he just let out a sigh. “I’ve got a double-shift tonight, honey. They’re payin’ me on Friday.”

“That’s good.” The wind moaned.

He didn’t even notice my sweating palms or guilty face. “Your friend called. Gwyneth. It’s that rich girl, right?”

I nodded woodenly.
That rich girl.
“Yeah.”

“All right.” He stood up. “She said to call her. I’m’a gonna go to work. You be careful now, huh?”

“I will.” I swallowed hard. His eyes were bloodshot, but he didn’t look angry. “Do you want dinner before you go?”

“No ma’am. Don’t have time.” He dug in his pocket and brought out his wallet. Two twenties, crisp and new, laid on the
table. “See if’n you can get some groceries, honey. They pay me Friday, but we can have something before then. All right?”

Milk, at least. And potatoes and ground beef. Beans—we could eat chili for a couple nights. My stomach cramped at the thought, around its load of curly fries and milkshake. “All right.”

He nodded. Big, heavy slump-shouldered man. “I got work shirts. You wash ’em.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

I waited until he was gone, his truck making the weird whining squeak of a belt too loose or too tight or something, before letting out the long breath I was holding.

“Jesus,” I said to the empty kitchen, and picked up the two twenties. I might even be able to have lunch once or twice this week, if I skimped on the meat and got extra bread.

The phone rang again. I swallowed, hard, my throat clicking. It rang three times before I could get around the table and to the wall where it hung. I picked it up, but all I got was a dial tone and the sound of the wind.

I was already waiting to see Johnny again.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Gwyn whispered. I sank down further in my chair. Sister Laurel underlined the date of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act on the chalkboard. I made a note of it. “Really, it wasn’t.”

I didn’t respond. She’d been at it since she walked into class late and settled down in her seat. A fading hickey on the side of her neck told me how the Friday party had turned out for her.
Probably with Scott Holder. She was lucky like that.

Gwyneth hissed my name, but I stared straight ahead.

Sister Laurel half-turned. Her profile was like a hawk’s, with a hawk’s beady stare. “Does someone have something to say?” she asked nobody in particular.

You could have heard a pin drop. The wind scraped at the windows. Sister Laurel went on about trade protectionism and the gold standard, and the causes of the Great Depression.

“Don’t be like this,” Gwyneth whispered.

I hunched my shoulders and didn’t reply. We both eventually knew I’d forgive her, right? I always had before whenever she did something stupid or hurtful. That was my place in the cosmos—to be utterly forgiving. And in return, I got to lie awake in her bedroom and imagine I had her parents and her lucky golden life.

Do you see a future for yourself?

I kind of did. Getting through school on scholarship, making it through college, maybe getting an okay job. Working to afford a place of my own.

And then what?

Gwyneth would never have to search like that. Mommy and Daddy would send her to college and she’d catch a fellow rich boy, no problem. She’d make nice little golden babies and drink martinis in the afternoon. She’d never have to carry cash down to the utilities office and plead to be reconnected, or plead not to be disconnected. Dad sent me because I could talk my way around the employees. It was a fine art.

My cheeks were scarlet.

Gwyneth whispered my name again. Girls were shifting in their chairs, wondering what was going on between us.

Sister Laurel turned to face the class. Her gimlet gaze wandered over all of us, and I tried to look innocent and bored at once. I glanced down at my notes.

Did I see a future? Ink scratches on paper.

The Sister finally tapped her meterstick on her desk, a slight padded sound against piled papers. She called on Erica Angier, and I let out a silent sigh. Saved again by luck.

I made it out the door before Gwyneth could catch me. Let her go hang out with her popular friends. It wasn’t like it mattered.

Not when I was going to see him again.

Gwyn skipped Brother Bob’s daily perdition. And the whole sucktastic day got better once I escaped sixth period and made it to the front of the school. Johnny was leaning against his Jetta, utterly disregarding the signs screaming N
O
P
ARKING
! in the fire lane. He bought me a cheeseburger this time, more curly fries, and a Coke. He sucked on a strawberry milkshake, and said he wasn’t hungry.

We sat on the hood of his car again, in the same spot overlooking the valley, and talked about nothing all afternoon. It was nice to talk to someone who actually
listened.

The sun tended westward, and the wind’s rasping moan settling drifts of hot dust over the valley wasn’t nearly as creepy
when there was someone’s voice to shut it out. We lay back on the hood and looked up at the liquid movement of light through the branches, and when he kissed me he didn’t take his shades off. But I didn’t mind. I didn’t even mind that I probably reeked of cheeseburger.

He even listened while he kissed. I can’t describe it better than that. He braced himself on his elbow and his other hand didn’t roam, just resting fingertips lightly along my jawline and occasionally dipping down to the curve of my throat where my pulse spiked frantically toward him. I bonked my cheekbone on his shades and laughed with a mouth full of him, and he laughed too. He tasted like strawberry milkshake, and he smelled like peppermints and desire and hot sun and clean clothes. He bit my bottom lip very gently, then kissed me harder.

It was so different from making out with the ugly friend of Gwyn’s current conquest in the front seat while the golden people heavy-petted in the roomy back seat.

We separated, and I still couldn’t see his eyes. “You wear those all the time?” I reached up, as if I was going to take his shades off, but he moved subtly back and I got the hint.

“Not all the time. Listen, I have some work that needs to be done. How about I take you out tonight? I’ll wait at the end of your road.”

My heart was pounding. I probably should have asked some questions, but I was tired of asking questions. I was tired of waiting. The air was bright and golden with pollen and dust, and I wanted to kiss the corner of his mouth again. His skin was
smooth, a different texture. Like heavy silk, or something else matte and perfect.

He wasn’t too perfect, though. He wasn’t one of
them
.

“Okay.” Getting out of the house wasn’t going to be a problem, not with Dad working. I could be gone after dinner, and he’d never know. He’d probably think I was out with Gwyneth, unless she was calling again. “Where are we going?”

“Does it matter?” He laughed, and touched my cheek. The gentle flutter of fingertips spilled all the way through me, a tide of heat.

I should have cared. But I didn’t. I let Johnny take me home, and I even kissed him goodbye. We didn’t say we were together or anything. I didn’t think we needed to.

If I’d known, I probably would have made something nicer for dinner. But I was in a hurry, so it was Hamburger Helper. Dad chowed down silently. I’d even ironed his workshirts, and he had one on. “Late tonight,” he grunted as he stamped out the door.

“Yes, Daddy.”
I’m going to be late tonight too.
We were probably just going to the Bleu, though.

The thought of being seen with Johnny, maybe by Gwyn and Mitzi if they didn’t have another party to go to, made me laugh out loud while I cleaned up the kitchen. I even put on Gwyn’s black silk shirt again. He probably wouldn’t care what I wore. And dammit, she probably owed me the shirt. She could
always buy another twenty of them.

The good mood lasted until I tried to shave my legs and cut a gash in my leg with the cheap-ass razor. I bled all over the bathtub while the sun went down, and all of a sudden I was sure he wouldn’t show up. I’d wait out there in Gwyneth’s shirt and my school skirt and feel like an idiot.

I stopped and put my sweating forehead on my knees. In summer, the tepid water that squeezed out of our ancient plumbing was pretty much a blessing. Right now I was thinking it would do me good. The wind licked the sides of our trailer, and I surprised myself by laughing again, a hard jagged sound.

If he didn’t show up, I would know. And I’d call Gwyneth. And forgive her.

But if he did, I’d be ready.

It was a tinderbox night, the kind that usually starts with heat lightning and ends with a fire out in the hills and everyone jumpy. The Bleu was packed. It always was, even on school nights. I didn’t mind, and Johnny didn’t seem to either. We were glued to each other in the middle of the crowded dance floor. It was dripping hot, everyone breathing on everyone else, glowsticks flashing and the lights smearing over blank young faces.

The music hit a thumping groove and stayed there for a long time. It was like swimming next to someone else’s body. Johnny held me, and I got flashes of peppermint and clean heat whenever he leaned in.

Losing yourself in the middle of a mass of kids is easy. Losing yourself with someone else, that’s hard. We made up a little private universe in the middle of the dance floor. When the lights went out, the only illumination was from the glowsticks and the sheen of sweat, and Johnny nuzzled along my neck. He had swept my hair aside and his chest was against my back. I tilted my chin up when his fingertips pressed gently, and his other arm turned hard across my waist.

His breath was hot on my skin, and I melted into him. I thought he was just giving me a hickey, but a weird thing happened.

Johnny tensed behind me. The music thundered, some singer wailing over the top about a missionary man, and a spot of heat began in my throat. It flushed down my entire body like lava running down a hillside, working inward from my skin and settling in the pit of my belly. Pounding bass drew it deeper and deeper, through my bones and down into the core of me, and the entire club went dark red. Like how you close your eyes against a searchlight and your eyelids turn everything into a crimson haze. The throbbing of my heart melted into the bass and slowed down, my hips jerked forward, and everything inside me exploded.